Transmedia literacy and social networks: Instagram as a teaching tool in the university classroom

Abstract

In the actual media environment, technological advances have resulted in new forms of communication based on the Internet, smart devices, and social networks. In this context, universities receive students belonging to the so-called generation Z, young people who do not know a world without the Internet, which their smartphone regularly accompanies and who use social networks as the primary communication tool, mainly Instagram. Taking into account that the life of this generation is based on these practices related to technology and the development of transmedia skills (Scolari, 2018), they can be used in the university classroom to facilitate teaching by integrating them into the teaching-learning processes.

This research aims to put into practice the implementation of the transmedia skills of young people in university education with the creation of an Instagram channel associated with a subject of the Degree in Audiovisual Communication taught at the Polytechnic University of Valencia- Gandia Campus, based on the good results obtained in a pilot experience the previous year. The objective is to improve communication between students and teachers. Also, to increase and enhance the attention in the subject outside the teaching time in the classroom and, in parallel, show responsible use of mobile and social networks, which can have a teaching utility. For this, we use a quantitative and qualitative methodology based on the forms and evaluation of the results as well as, in the review of other projects of social networks use in the university field and the bibliography regarding this.